He laughed softly. ‘I’d noticed that I was overdressed,’ he said, turning the tables neatly on her.
Biting her lip, she swivelled, and of course her wretched leg chose just that moment to let her down again. Gasping, she jerked back, but too late. Her sideways lurch had thrown her into the tangle of bushes, and her foot sank into the lake so that water rose halfway up her calf.
Panic, sickening and immediate, clawed at her. For a horrifying second she couldn’t move, until the clamouring terror forced her free of the water. Whimpering, she pushed past Alex, blundering across the hot sand in a desperate rush to reach the safety of solid ground.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE was almost there when hard hands caught her, gripping her cruelly until she stopped fighting and went limp against him, panic giving way to a shamed exhaustion.
‘All right,’ Alex said quietly. ‘It’s all right, Ianthe. You’re safe.’
‘I know,’ she choked, trying to pull away, because it was too easy to surrender mindlessly to his disciplined toughness.
A simple offer of comfort, she told her hammering heart, that was all it was. He’d given her the only things she could take any consolation from—the tempered support of his body, the knowledge that she wasn’t alone.
Swiftly he turned, forcing her around so that his broad shoulders sheltered her from any curious stares, then let her go. A quick glance informed her that no one had noticed, and some of the tight knot of humiliation eased.
But when she looked back at Alex she couldn’t escape those enigmatic eyes, eyes that goaded her into muttering, ‘Don’t you pity me.’
Something predatory prowled through the icy depths. ‘Pity you?’ His smile was taut and compelling. ‘I don’t pity you, Ianthe Brown. Far from it.’ Strong fingers bit into her arm, turned her, tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. ‘All right, we’ll walk back in the shade of the trees. What birds do you usually see on the lakes?’
Ianthe forced herself to respond. ‘Dotterels nest in scrapes in the sand, and in spring and autumn the lakes are a staging point for migratory birds.’ As she answered his questions her voice sounded flat and dull, but by the time they got back to the bach the black panic had withdrawn into its lurking limbo on the borders of her mind.
She said, ‘I’d like to sit outside.’
He waited until she’d chosen a shabby, comfortable chair, then leaned against the railing and looked down at her. Without preamble he commanded, ‘Tell me why a woman who’s terrified of the water should choose to stay no more than twenty-five metres away from it.’
She owed him an explanation, but all she could say was a muted, ‘I just have to get used to it again.’
His scrutiny pierced her fragile shell of composure, splintering it into shards. At the end of the most tense silence Ianthe had ever endured, he asked, ‘Haven’t you been able to go in the water since the shark attacked you?’
‘No.’ Her voice was hoarse. She cleared her throat and went on, ‘It’s not the water. It’s teeth. I dream of dolphins, and they play and smile, and then their smiles turn into teeth and—and—I’m terrified something will catch me and drag me down, and that this time I’ll die.’
‘Ianthe,’ he said deeply, and came across and sat down beside her, took her tense hand in his strong, warm one.
Something snapped inside her. Hastily, indistinctly, she muttered, ‘I’m not scared of water—I can wallow in a bath and clean my teeth without flinching, drive across the Harbour Bridge without turning a hair, even walking along the beach is all right. But if I—well, you saw.’
‘So you came here to get over it?’
Ianthe shivered at the savage irony of his tone. With eyes fixed on the vivid cobalt surface of the lake she said, ‘This is where I learned to swim. Tricia and I splashed around in the shallows, then her mother taught us the strokes and jollied us into swimming properly. It seemed the most natural thing in the world—and so utterly safe. That first summer she wouldn’t let us swim through the wall—it was out there in front of us, tantalising and forbidden. Do you know what I mean?’
‘By the wall? I presume it’s the drop-off into deeper water. I’d noticed it—it’s unusually obvious.’ He spoke with a cool intonation, as though measuring every word he said.
‘The bed of the lake is actually below sea level. That depth and the extreme clarity of the water and the brilliant whiteness of the sand all combine to make the wall.’ Keeping her head averted, she eased her hand away from his grip. Her pulses thudded through the fragile veins at her wrist and she looked at his hand, lean-fingered and competent.
But not relaxed, she thought with a bleak surprise. No, there was tension in those tanned fingers and she could feel it crackle around her. Not that she blamed him; she was probably embarrassing him horribly. No doubt he couldn’t get away fast enough.
Straightening her back, she stared blindly across the verandah and went on, ‘Swimming through it is like breaking through a barrier, free-falling into another dimension. However often I did it I always loved it, that moment when I burst through into the blue. I felt strong and different, the sort of person who could do anything.’
‘You are the sort of person who can do anything,’ he said curtly. ‘This is temporary, a normal response to the trauma of pain and shock and terror.’
Anger ricocheted through her, hot and sudden and fierce. ‘I can’t even put my feet into the water! I’d hoped that coming here would help—after all, the biggest wildlife in this water are eels.’ Her voice bit sardonically into the words. ‘And they’re not noted for ferocious attacks on human beings.’
‘So it hasn’t worked yet. Give it time, and it will.’ He got to his feet and walked across to the rail, leaning against it to look over the lake.
Numbly Ianthe watched the muscles of his thighs flex, the lithe grace as he moved. ‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ she said bleakly. ‘You saw me when I tripped. It’s called a panic attack.’
‘You expect too much, too soon. Have you had any counselling?’
She shook her head. ‘Apart from Tricia, I haven’t told anyone else but you.’
‘Why?’
She heard the frown in his tone. Clasping her hands in her lap, she concentrated on the way the sun fell across them, emphasising thin fingers and pale skin.
Slowly she said, ‘Because I feel—reduced, I suppose. And I didn’t understand how bad it was until I came here. I’m fine in swimming pools, and although I knew the sea made me panicky I didn’t realise why. I thought I just needed to take things quietly and I’d be all right in no time.’
He turned his head so that he was looking at her, eyes burning like pale flames in the darkness of his face. ‘You shouldn’t be alone. Where is your family?’
That tantalising hint of an alien accent, an unknown language, lingered in his autocratic voice. ‘My mother’s dead,’ she told him, fighting off an enormous lassitude that rolled over her, sapping her strength, loosening her tongue. ‘My father is busy with his second wife and second family. Anyway, I don’t need anyone—what could they do?’ She lifted weighted lashes and managed to curve her lips into an approximation of a smile. ‘Actually, today was quite a step forward. I was in the water for a fraction of a second and didn’t—quite—succumb to hysterics.’
‘I saw how much it cost you,’ Alex said tersely. ‘You need help for this, not solitude and will-power. Is there no one who can come and stay with you? This Tricia—your friend? Surely—?’
‘No, she’s got a husband